Friday, December 23, 2005

"Where's the outrage?"

Back in the 1980s, when I was living in Johannesburg and reporting on apartheid South Africa, a white neighbor proffered a tasteless confession. She was "quite relieved," she told me, that new media restrictions prohibited our reporting on government repression. No matter that Pretoria was detaining tens of thousands of people without real evidence of wrongdoing. No matter that many of them, including children, were being tortured—sometimes to death. No matter that government hit squads were killing political opponents. No matter that police were shooting into crowds of black civilians protesting against their disenfranchisement. "It's so nice," confided my neighbor, "not to open the papers and read all that bad news."

I thought about that neighbor this week, as reports dribbled out about President George W. Bush's sanctioning of warrantless eavesdropping on American conversations. For anyone who has lived under an authoritarian regime, phone tapping—or at least the threat of it—is always a given. But U.S. citizens have always been lucky enough to believe themselves protected from such government intrusion. So why have they reacted so insipidly to yet another post-9/11 erosion of U.S. civil liberties?

Yes, the author reflexively remembered a brutal apartheid government (that, by his own admission, tortured and killed children) when the words "George W. Bush" hit his ears. Color me with the "unsurprised" crayon! Continuing:

I'm sure there are many well-meaning Americans who agree with their president's explanation that it's all a necessary evil (and that patriotic citizens will not be spied on unless they dial up Osama bin Laden). But the nasty echoes of apartheid South Africa should at least give them pause.

The term "well-meaning Americans" is typical leftist-speak for "you poor (though nice) unintelligent rubes!" Thank goodness we have guys like him to tell us what really is going on, otherwise we just might continue to keep rejecting their "enlightened" drivel at the ballot box.

I'd like to ask this author from the magazine that apparently got its accuracy tips from Dan Rather and Mary Mapes: Where was your outrage when Bill Clinton was doing the same thing? I've documented here, as have others in various comments here, that Bill Clinton spied on suspected white supremacists, anti-abortion clergy, and perhaps the most vile entities in the world today...(gasp!) businesses! All without FISA warrants, too.

I suppose that it's safe to infer from the silence exhibited from this author and his other leftist siblings that as long as the entities being spied on by a Democrat administration are from a politically incorrect group, there are no problems or concerns...at least, not loud enough to voice. Once a Republican president does the same thing in the same manner, though to a more "misunderstood" politically correct group like oppressed Islamofascists who want us all dead and have left a crater in lower Manhattan as a reminder (though obviously an ineffective one) that we are at war, then and only then are these concerns voiced.

Newsweak ran a bogus story about a Koran being flushed down a toilet at Club Gitmo. If they want a similar but (this time) accurate story, they can send the aforementioned author to my place and he can witness me flushing a copy of their puppy housebreaking tool (i.e. their magazine) down MY toilet!

Thursday, December 22, 2005

Sunnis, Shiites threaten to boycott legislature

What I wouldn't give for Democrats to boycott government here in America! Hey, one can dream, right? Anyway, from the AP:

Dozens of Sunni Arab and secular Shiite groups threatened to boycott Iraq's new legislature Thursday if complaints about tainted voting are not reviewed by an international body.

A representative for former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi described the Dec. 15 vote as "fraudulent" and the elected lawmakers "illegitimate."

That last paragraph sounds like Democrats did indeed make their way into Iraq! Aside from Baghdad Jim McDermott and John "Our troops can't win, and I should know, 'cuz I used to be one" Murtha's trips, I mean.

Saddam: "U.S. Denials of Torture Are 'Lies'"

Saddam Hussein insisted again Thursday that he had been beaten by his American captors, denouncing Washington's denials as "lies" and mocking President Bush's claim that Baghdad had chemical weapons....On Wednesday Saddam told the court he'd been beaten "everywhere" on his body and insisted the marks were still there. He did not display any marks.

At least Saddam has allies in American government. After all, his claims of Americans torturing have been parroted by Dick Durbin, right?

Also, Saddam says that just because he doesn't have any marks on his body does not mean that his claim is untrue. After all, no one has proven his claim is untrue, right? Hmmm...this sounds an awful lot like the CBS Memogate defense, doesn't it?

In time for the holidays!

To show what kind of guy I am, I've decided to spread a little holiday cheer to everyone, including our friends on the left. So I give to you, as passed on to me, "The Twelve Politically Correct Days of Christmas (a Non-Denominational Winter Holiday)":

On the 12th day of the Eurocentrically imposed midwinter festival, my Significant Other(s) in a consenting adult relationship gave to me:

ELEVEN pipers piping (plus the 8-member pit orchestra made up of members in good standing of the Musicians Equity Union as called for in their union contract even though they will not be asked to play a note),

(NOTE: after members of the Animal Liberation Front threatened to throw red paint at my computer, the calling birds, French hens, turtledoves, and partridge have been reintroduced to their native habitat. To avoid further Animal-American enslavement, the remaining gift package has been revised.)

* Unless, of course, you are suffering from Seasonally Affected Disorder (SAD). If this be the case, please substitute this gratuitous call for celebration with a suggestion that your have a thoroughly adequate day.

The "deficit reduction" bill

Wonder why I'm no Republican, and am instead a libertarian? How about fiscal discipline, for starters? From Breitbart:

The Republican-controlled Senate passed legislation to cut federal deficits by $39.7 billion on Wednesday by the narrowest of margins, 51-50, with Vice President Dick Cheney casting the deciding vote.

The measure, the product of a year's labors by the White House and the GOP in Congress, imposes the first restraints in nearly a decade in federal benefit programs such as Medicaid, Medicare and student loans.

First of all, how can it be a true "deficit reduction" bill if it only cuts $40 billion from the bloated budget we've become accustomed to seeing every year? Like Chris Farley's character Matt Foley used to say on SNL, "that, and a nickel, will get you a hot cup of jack squat!"

Secondly, how pathetic is it that the GOP, the purported "party of limited government and fiscal discipline", needed the VP to break a tie?

Thirdly, how come the mountains of pork contained in the energy and transporation budgets couldn't be stripped? Actually, that question is rhetorical, since we all know the answer to THAT!

Finally, I'd like to see specifics of what was reduced from Medicade, Medicare, and student loans before reflexively saying "Those heartless bastards!" After all, there's so much fraud, waste, and duplication at several levels in the federal government, so if those were some of the targets of the cuts, I have no problem with that. We need more of that.

If not for national defense and resistance to the left's harmful and punitive tax (and social) policies, I'd have little need for the Republican Party at all.

Formerly "Is it illegal?", currently "Is it improper?"

The implications from the beginning of the "Bush spied" story has been that Bush's authorization of wiretapping international calls to/from terrorism suspects was illegal. Now, more and more legal experts, as well as bloggers doing the job that journalists used to do, are discovering that the warrantless wiretaps are certainly and unquestionably legal. The latest legal opinion comes from, of all people, Clinton's former associate A.G. John Schmidt. From the Chicago Tribune:

President Bush's post- Sept. 11, 2001, authorization to the National Security Agency to carry out electronic surveillance into private phone calls and e-mails is consistent with court decisions and with the positions of the Justice Department under prior presidents....In the Supreme Court's 1972 Keith decision holding that the president does not have inherent authority to order wiretapping without warrants to combat domestic threats, the court said explicitly that it was not questioning the president's authority to take such action in response to threats from abroad.

Four federal courts of appeal subsequently faced the issue squarely and held that the president has inherent authority to authorize wiretapping for foreign intelligence purposes without judicial warrant.

In the most recent judicial statement on the issue, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review, composed of three federal appellate court judges, said in 2002 that "All the ... courts to have decided the issue held that the president did have inherent authority to conduct warrantless searches to obtain foreign intelligence ... We take for granted that the president does have that authority."...But as the 2002 Court of Review noted, if the president has inherent authority to conduct warrantless searches, "FISA could not encroach on the president's constitutional power."

You know..."constitutional power"? For those of you stuck on stupid and vote Democrat, the Constitution is that document that you folks find quaint that forms the blueprint of our government. Usually, you guys only reference the Consitution when you're inventing new "rights" and ignoring the original rights expressly stated. But I digress...

Please read Schmidt's article...it's not very long, but it gives great legal insight (without drowning the reader in "legalese") to the matter. Schmidt does close with a valid point about potential abuse:

Should we be afraid of this inherent presidential power? Of course. If surveillance is used only for the purpose of preventing another Sept. 11 type of attack or a similar threat, the harm of interfering with the privacy of people in this country is minimal and the benefit is immense. The danger is that surveillance will not be used solely for that narrow and extraordinary purpose.

But we cannot eliminate the need for extraordinary action in the kind of unforeseen circumstances presented by Sept.11. I do not believe the Constitution allows Congress to take away from the president the inherent authority to act in response to a foreign attack. That inherent power is reason to be careful about who we elect as president, but it is authority we have needed in the past and, in the light of history, could well need again.

So the question can no longer be "Is it illegal?", since the answer is clearly "No." The question then becomes "Is it improper?" That, my friends, is a valid question on which reasonable people (which will exclude a lot of folks) can disagree.

If the left's genuine concern was the potential for abuse of such monitoring, such as what their stud Bill Clinton did with anti-abortion clergy or American companies, then I could see their cause for concern. However, considering that their concerns are more driven by BDS (Bush Derangement Syndrome) than any faux fears of privacy or defense (* snort! * Yeah, libs and defense!), you'll have to forgive me for reflexively dismissing their concerns.

Wednesday, December 21, 2005

It must be a stolen election

Listening to Democrats, you'd think that they never really lose elections. No, whenever they appear to lose an election, they are absolutely convinced that there must have been vote fraud involved. After all, the electorate surely wouldn't reject their big government defeatist and cynical agenda, now would we?

Well, pass the Alka Selzter and the tinfoil hats, because here's guessing that the Dems are going to get worked into another lather. From the AP:

A recount Wednesday upheld Republican Bob McDonnell's narrow victory for attorney general in the closest statewide election in modern Virginia history.

Democrat Creigh Deeds demanded the recount after the State Board of Elections certified McDonnell the winner by just 323 votes out of more than 1.9 million cast in the Nov. 8 election — a margin of 0.0166 of a percentage point.

It must be Diebold's fault...or, at the very least, Bushitlerove McRummyburton's doing!

You would think that Dems, aka the Glass House Party, wouldn't level accusations of vote fraud against anyone considering their shameful history:

* 1960 Kennedy over Nixon. Illinois and Texas ballot fraud, proudly admitted by unions and abetted by the Daley machine in Chicago. Heavily GOP districts had ballot boxes disapeear and later found at the bottom of Lake Michigan.

* 2000, multiple cases. Gore bribing homeless with cigs in WI, college students multiple voting in WI, a liberal judge keeping polls open in urban St. Louis where people voted multiple times, Gore getting ambulance chasers to squelch FL military votes while piously calling to "count every vote", etc.; Maria Cantwell "finding" enough votes in heavily liberal Seattle after seeing how many votes Slade Gorton had through the rest of the state and eking out a narrow win.

* 2002, Tim Johnson over John Thune. Thune goes to bed with a serviceable 1500 - 2000 vote lead, then the last remaining county (which didn't get counted until 10:00 a.m. the next day) gave Johnson a whopping 92% of their vote, and a 524-vote win. Thune, being no Al Gore, conceded. Dead Indians, lawyers intimidating rural SD voters, a fired Dem worker who had manufactured absentee ballot signatures, etc., all assured that Thune would get shafted. Karma turned out to be a real bitch for the left, though, as Thune deposed the bigger fish Tom Dasshole a mere two years later.

* 2004, multiple cases. In WI, Dem workers slashed tired of vans used for GOP vote bussing, not to mention at least 1200 known cases of invalid addresses used by Dems (story here). Democrook Christine Gregoire lost the vote and the recount to Dino Rossi in the WA governor's race. As luck would have it, previously "undiscovered" ballots were "suddenly found" in liberal stronghold Seattle. These heretofore unknown ballots had made it through a count and recount before magically appearing. Surprise, surprise...Rossi loses the state by 120 votes.

There are scores of other examples on national, state, and local levels where Dems cheat to win. I'd document more of them, but I need to get to bed to get ready for work, so my paycheck can be pilfered and given to a welfare brood queen in Detroit. In closing, I'll just say this: The Glass House Party needs to hide its stone collection, wouldn't you say?

Clintonista judge resigns over "Bush spied" non-story

A federal judge has resigned from the court that oversees government surveillance in intelligence cases in protest of President Bush's secret authorization of a domestic spying program, according to two sources.

U.S. District Judge James Robertson, one of 11 members of the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, sent a letter to Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. late Monday notifying him of his resignation without providing an explanation.

James Robertson sent his resignation to the chief justice.Two associates familiar with his decision said yesterday that Robertson privately expressed deep concern that the warrantless surveillance program authorized by the president in 2001 was legally questionable and may have tainted the FISA court's work.

Buried in the comPost story is the obligatory disclaimer about what critics say:

Robertson is considered a liberal judge who has often ruled against the Bush administration's assertions of broad powers in the terrorism fight, most notably in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld . Robertson held in that case that the Pentagon's military commissions for prosecuting terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, were illegal and stacked against the detainees.

PowerLine has great info on the Hamdan ruling by Robertson: "A district court judge appointed by President Clinton bent over backwards to find that trial by a military tribunal isn't good enough for Osama bin Laden's driver and his fellow al Qaeda members who were captured fighting against us in Afghanistan". His decision in the Hamdan case was reversed by the unanimous vote of a panel of the D.C. Circuit which included current Chief Justice John Roberts.

Lost amongst the implied adulation heaped on the judge by the comPost is a little background info on the judge. From NewsMax:

The press is breathlessly reporting that U.S. District Judge James Robertson has resigned from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court - "apparently" in a fit of conscience over news that President Bush was using the National Security Agency to monitor the telephone conversations of terrorists.

If the reports are correct, Judge Robertson's conscience has evolved considerably since the days when he was dismissing one criminal case after another against cronies of Bill Clinton - the man who appointed him to the bench in 1994.

Old Arkansas media hand Paul Greenberg has long had Robertson's number. In a 1999 column for Jewish World Review, Greenberg described the honorable judge as "one of the more prejudiced Clintonoids on the bench."

In two cases involving Hubbell, AIM reported, "Judge James Robertson threw out a tax charge and another for lying to federal investigators. Appellate courts overruled in both cases, and Hubbell then plead guilty to felonies in each case."Judge Robertson's conscience also seemed to go AWOL when it came to the case of Archie Schaffer, an executive with Tyson Chicken - the company that had showered Mr. Clinton with campaign contributions and helped steer Mrs. Clinton to her commodities market killing.

Critics said Judge Robertson was merely returning the favor on behalf of the man who appointed him, when - as CNN reported in 1998, he "threw out the jury conviction of Tyson Foods executive Archie Schaffer for providing gifts to former Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy."

Robertson had "granted a motion by Schaffer to overturn the verdict which found him guilty of giving Espy tickets to President Bill Clinton's first inaugural dinner and gifts at a birthday party for the firm's chief executive, Don Tyson."

In the context of his past performance on the bench, Judge Robertson's media fans will surely understand why some of us aren't buying their claims that he stormed off the FISA court in a fit of outrage over perceived law breaking.

The Gateway Pundit has even more information on how this Clintonista is a judicial activist for leftist causes.

Funny how Clintonistas get intermittent and unpredictable fits of conscience, and even funnier how said fits coincide with agendas!

"The Left's privacy hypocrites"

This goes beyond the "Bush spying" hullaballoo, so I'm not beating a dead horse here. From Michelle:

Allow me to sum up the homeland security strategy of America's do-nothing brigade, led by the armchair generals at The New York Times and ACLU headquarters:

First, bar law enforcement at all levels from taking race, ethnicity, national origin and religion into account when assessing radical Islamic terror threats. (But continue to allow the use of those factors to ensure "diversity" in public-college admissions, contracting, and police- and fire-department hiring.)

Second, institute the "Eenie-meenie-miny-moe" random-search program at all subways, railways and bus stations. (If Atta had been subjected to this policy, he would have certainly...still carried out his mission! - Ed.)

Third, open the borders, sabotage all immigration enforcement efforts and scream "Racist" at any law-abiding American who protests.

Fourth, sue. Sue. Sue.

Fifth, yell "Connect the dots!" while rebuilding and strengthening the walls that prevent information-sharing between the CIA, State Department, Justice Department, the Department of Homeland Security and other key government agencies. (Also, put said wall's erector on the 9/11 Commission and prohibit her from being questioned about her complicity! - Ed.)

Sixth, hang the white flag and declare victory. (France always forgets the second part of this equation! - Ed.)

Seventh, sit back and wait to blame the president for failing to take aggressive, preventative measures when the next terrorist attack hits.

Repeat.

The hindsight hypocrisy of the civil-liberties absolutists never ceases to amaze. And their selective outrage over privacy violations never ceases to aggravate. Last Friday, The New York Times splashed classified information about the National Security Agency's surveillance of international communications between suspected al Qaeda operatives and their contacts all over the front page in a naked attempt to sabotage the Patriot Act. This Tuesday, the newspaper continued to stir fears of "spying on all innocent Americans" by recycling old ACLU complaints about FBI monitoring of radical environmental groups, antiwar activists and some Muslim leaders and groups.

Alarmists in the Beltway want investigations (though not of the leakers who fed the Times its story). The civil-liberties sky is falling, they say, and never have Americans been subjected to such invasive snooping. ("We want to know who's violating our rights...but we don't want to know who broke the law by leaking classified information to us to report to the world!" - Ed.)

Funny enough, another story about unprecedented domestic spying measures broke a week before the Times' stunt. But neither the Times nor the ACLU nor the Democratic Party leadership had a peep to say about the reported infringements on Americans' civil liberties. Sen. Charles Schumer (by the way, Chuck, how's that apology to Lt. Gov. Michael Steele over his stolen credit report coming along?) did not rush to the cameras to call the alleged privacy breach "shocking." Sen. Robert Byrd did not awake from his slumber to decry the adoption of "the thuggish practices of our enemies." The indignant New York Times editorial board did not call for heads to roll.

That's because the targets of the spy scandal that didn't make the front-page headlines were politically incorrect right-wing extremists.

According to the McCurtain Daily Gazette, in the days after the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, the U.S. government used a spy satellite to gather intelligence on a white separatist compound in Oklahoma. The paper obtained a Secret Service log showing that on May 2, 1995, two weeks after the April 19 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building that killed 168 people, the FBI was trying to locate suspects for questioning.

Investigators zeroed in on the compound in nearby Elohim City. "Satellite assets have been tasked to provide intelligence concerning the compound," the document said, according to the Gazette and Associate Press. The Gazette noted that "America's spy-satellite program is jointly under the control of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Department of Defense (DoD). Targeting decisions are classified; however, persons familiar with the project say any domestic use of these satellites is barred by agreements between the CIA and DoD." Photoreconnaissance satellites that gather intelligence from space usually target hostile governments and foreign terrorists. "The domestic use of a military satellite for domestic spying is a violation of DoD and CIA regulations regarding the proper use of top-secret national security satellites," the Gazette reported.

But with the exception of a brief Associated Press recap, the story received absolutely no mainstream-media attention. No civil-liberties circus. No White House press-corps pandemonium.

The left believes the government should do whatever it takes to fight terrorists -- but only when the terrorists look like Timothy McVeigh. If you're on the MCI Friends and Family plan of Osama bin Laden and Abu Zubaydah, you're home free.

The left really wonders why no one takes them seriously on defense matters, too!

We lived in a police state under Carter

Feature the new line of political attack the left is launching against the White House. It is criticizing the Bush administration for authorizing the government to listen in on telephone and email conversations between America and places such as Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Syria. And the Democratic Party, in the latest evidence of the bubble-like separation from reality in which the party lives, is working itself into a lather from which it is going to take weeks to recover, if it can recover at all....Reasonable people may differ over the correct place to draw the line between civil liberties and national security in wartime, but this strikes us as a pretty clear-cut case. The Fourth Amendment states, "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

At issue is whether the listening in on overseas phone conversations is, in a time of war, "unreasonable." A person is now subject to a warrantless search when boarding an airplane, entering the New York subway system, or even entering the building that houses the office of the New York Civil Liberties Union. Why should an international phone call be inviolate?

Beyond the Fourth Amendment, the law that is said to restrict the Bush administration's activities is the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978. But, contrary to what you may read in some other newspapers, that law does not require that all such surveillance be authorized by a court. The law provides at least two special exceptions to the requirement of a court order. As FISA has been integrated into Title 50 of the U.S. Code, Chapter 36, Subchapter I, Section 1802, one such provision is helpfully headed, "Electronic surveillance authorization without court order."

This "without court order" was so clear that even President Carter, a Democrat not known for his vigilance in the war on terror, issued an executive order on May 23, 1979, stating, "Pursuant to Section 102(a)(1) of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (50 U.S.C. 1802(a)), the Attorney General is authorized to approve electronic surveillance to acquire foreign intelligence information without a court order." He said, "without a court order."...America is in a war with Islamic extremists who are trying to defeat our country. "Two of the terrorist hijackers who flew a jet into the Pentagon, Nawaf al Hamzi and Khalid al Mihdhar, communicated while they were in the United States to other members of al Qaeda who were overseas," Mr. Bush said in his radio address. "But we didn't know they were here, until it was too late." The president said the activities he authorized by the National Security Agency "make it more likely that killers like these 9/11 hijackers will be identified and located in time."...The majority of Americans, we're confident, are grateful to Mr. Bush for setting the listening in motion and hope it succeeds in preventing another attack like the one on September 11, 2001. If this listening were not happening, it'd be a scandal. You don't even need a wiretap to predict that the same partisan Democrats who are now denouncing the president for supposedly infringing on civil liberties would be denouncing him for failing to take the steps necessary to protect us.

As Michelle Malkin points out, now Baghdad Jim McDermott (Seattle Moonbat formerly on the...I'm not kidding...House Ethics Committee) is complaining about the wiretapping. Considering he had an illegally intercepted and illegally recorded call from Rep. John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) years ago and was fined $60k for it, this qualifies as another degree of gall, doesn't it? More selective outrage, I suppose.

I've documented where Clinton did this kind of spying, too, and even for non-security reasons. It's not until a Republican president does it to stop Islamofascists from destroying the country that the practice becomes abhorrent to the left.

If we don't do it, and an attack happens, then Bush gets castigated for not preventing the attack. If we do it and no attacks happen, then Bush gets castigated for being a dictator, much like Carter and Clinton were similarly criticized. Oh, wait...Carter and Clinton weren't similarly criticized, were they? Then drink your glass of STFU and let the man do his freakin' job, willya?

Like the piece says, reasonable people can differ over the correct place to draw the line between civil liberties and national security in wartime. Fair enough. However, the disgusting hypocrisy displayed by the left (not to mention their heinous politicization of our security and defense) clearly excludes them from the "reasonable people" category, doesn't it?

Tuesday, December 20, 2005

Union gets fined $1 million per day for illegal strike

Commuters trudged through the freezing cold, rode bicycles and shared cabs Tuesday as New York's bus and subway workers went on strike for the first time in more than 25 years and stranded millions of riders at the height of the Christmas rush. A judge slapped the union with a $1 million-a-day fine.

The sanction was levied against the Transport Workers Union for violating a state law that bars public employees from going on strike. The city and state had asked that the union be hit with a "very potent fine."

Get this gem:

The union said the latest MTA offer included annual raises of 3 percent, 4 percent and 3.5 percent. Pensions were another major sticking point in the talks, particularly involving new employees.

"Were it not for the pension piece, we would not be out on strike," union President Roger Toussaint said Tuesday in an interview with the New York-based all-news channel NY1. "All it needs to do is take its pension proposal off the table."

The strike is illegal. Yet here you have the union president actually stating the reason that they're breaking the law. "We wouldn't be violating the law if only... We'll be happy to obey the law if only..." Try that when a cop pulls you over for speeding: "Officer, I wouldn't have been violating the speed limit if only you guys had made it 10 mph higher!"

I had a co-worker ask me "Just what are the workers supposed to do if..." I cut him off, and said "State law is clear: their strike is illegal. A judge has agreed. What are they supposed to do? How about their freakin' jobs?? If their jobs or bennies suck, go get better jobs with better bennies!"

Unions suck. They once served a very valuable and noble service, but like today's "civil rights leaders" and Clinton interns, they have outlived their usefulness and are desperately trying to remain relevant.

The "independent" is Bernie Sanders of Vermont, from the Socialist Party. One "Nay" was Nancy Pelosi. Let that sink in: 108 American Congresspeople, including the Democrat leader in the House, are officially and unabashedly on record as opposing victory in Iraq. Roll call here to see how your rep voted.

In a little-remembered debate from 1994, the Clinton administration argued that the president has "inherent authority" to order physical searches — including break-ins at the homes of U.S. citizens — for foreign intelligence purposes without any warrant or permission from any outside body. Even after the administration ultimately agreed with Congress's decision to place the authority to pre-approve such searches in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court, President Clinton still maintained that he had sufficient authority to order such searches on his own.

"The Department of Justice believes, and the case law supports, that the president has inherent authority to conduct warrantless physical searches for foreign intelligence purposes," Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee on July 14, 1994, "and that the President may, as has been done, delegate this authority to the Attorney General."

"It is important to understand," Gorelick continued, "that the rules and methodology for criminal searches are inconsistent with the collection of foreign intelligence and would unduly frustrate the president in carrying out his foreign intelligence responsibilities."

Executive Order 12333, signed by Ronald Reagan in 1981, provides for such warrantless searches directed against "a foreign power or an agent of a foreign power."

Reporting the day after Gorelick's testimony, the Washington Post's headline — on page A-19 — read, "Administration Backing No-Warrant Spy Searches." The story began, "The Clinton administration, in a little-noticed facet of the debate on intelligence reforms, is seeking congressional authorization for U.S. spies to continue conducting clandestine searches at foreign embassies in Washington and other cities without a federal court order. The administration's quiet lobbying effort is aimed at modifying draft legislation that would require U.S. counterintelligence officials to get a court order before secretly snooping inside the homes or workplaces of suspected foreign agents or foreign powers."

In her testimony, Gorelick made clear that the president believed he had the power to order warrantless searches for the purpose of gathering intelligence, even if there was no reason to believe that the search might uncover evidence of a crime. "Intelligence is often long range, its exact targets are more difficult to identify, and its focus is less precise," Gorelick said. "Information gathering for policy making and prevention, rather than prosecution, are its primary focus."

The debate over warrantless searches came up after the case of CIA spy Aldrich Ames. Authorities had searched Ames's house without a warrant, and the Justice Department feared that Ames's lawyers would challenge the search in court. Meanwhile, Congress began discussing a measure under which the authorization for break-ins would be handled like the authorization for wiretaps, that is, by the FISA court. In her testimony, Gorelick signaled that the administration would go along a congressional decision to place such searches under the court — if, as she testified, it "does not restrict the president's ability to collect foreign intelligence necessary for the national security." In the end, Congress placed the searches under the FISA court, but the Clinton administration did not back down from its contention that the president had the authority to act when necessary.

Jamie Gorelick, whose wall prevented interagency data sharing was in large part responsible for 9/11, argued that presidents had the authority to conduct warrantless searches for purposes of foreign intelligence gathering. After all, these aren't criminal searches: they are security searches. Whether one agrees or disagrees with the propriety of such searches, the fact remains that such searches appear legal.

And if the left and the MSM (pardon the redundancy) are going to accuse the president of being a law-breaker, they are going to be severely handicapped with the facts. Damn, those things really get in the way sometimes, huh?

During the 1990s, President Bill Clinton ordered the National Security Agency to use its super-secret Echelon surveillance program to monitor the personal telephone calls and private email of employees who worked for foreign companies in a bid to boost U.S. trade, NewsMax.com has learned.

In 2000, former Clinton CIA director James Woolsey set off a firestorm of protest in Europe when he told the French newspaper Le Figaro that he was ordered by Clinton in 1993 to transform Echelon into a tool for gathering economic intelligence.

"We have a triple and limited objective," the former intelligence chief told the French paper. "To look out for companies which are breaking US or UN sanctions; to trace 'dual' technologies, i.e., for civil and military use, and to track corruption in international business."

As NewsMax reported exclusively on Sunday, Echelon had been used by the Clinton administration to monitor millions of personal phone calls, private emails and even ATM transactions inside the U.S. - all without a court order.

The massive invasion of privacy was justified by Echelon's defenders as an indispensable national security tool in the war on terror.But Clinton officials also utilized the program in ways that had nothing to do with national security - such as conducting economic espionage against foreign businesses.

That wasn't even under the guise of national security!

This goes beyond the usual hypocrisy and idiocy we've come to expect from the left. This is another case of the left being driven by a scorching case of BDS (Bush Derangement Syndrome) that they've abandoned any concerns they may have had over national security...and knowing the left, those concerns were never genuine, anyway. You morons can't tell the President of the U.S. to "connect the dots", then tell him "you can't connect those dots!" You can't say "catch the terrorists, just don't look or listen!"

If such searches were good enough for Mr. Cigar Prober as president, then they're good enough for the current president who's forced to do the dirty work of cleaning up the terrorism mess left by his predecessor.

Not sure what the first one is about. I know it's Plame, but I don't get the "casual sex partner" reference. Other than that, this is right on.

Also, along the lines of the MSM not getting worked up over Clinton's "spying" activities: link. Seems that the New York Slimes only gets hot and bothered when we monitor terrorists, especially those in America. When Clinton does it to monitor anyone, usually political foes like anti-abortion clergy, it's just peachy with the Slimes.

Point to ponder: MSM vs. blogosphere

We all know how the blogosphere cost Dan Rather and Mary Mapes their jobs at CBS. Rather and Mapes thought they could peddle their forged document story unchecked, and the blogosphere exposed their leftist agenda for the world to see. They received their walking papers shortly thereafter (oh, right...Rather retired, I'm sure completely unrelated to Memogate).

Now the Old Gray Hag, aka New York Slimes, has had its shoddy work exposed by the blogosphere. Hat tip to Michelle Malkin for the research and commentary, as well as the diverse legal viewpoints. Excerpt:

Now, go back and look carefully through the Times article. The reporters who have been so assiduously working on the story for at least a year couldn't find a single, non-anonymous expert in national security and the law to come up with the kind of informed analysis that took legal and counterterrorism bloggers three days to research and post.

How pathetic is that?

For the Slimes, this is either unbelievable journalistic sloppiness or brazenly biased reporting. You pick.

A little juvenile humor

Monday, December 19, 2005

Dorgan covering for the Clintons

While we're on the topic of government abuse here, how would you feel if the IRS had been used to harrass political enemies? Angry, I bet. Newsworthy? Duh...of course! What if government officials were covering it up? Why, we're talking full-blown (no Lewinsky puns, please!) scandal here! Unless...Bill Clinton and Democrats were involved, in which case, it's a collective "Yawn!" from the MSM. Observe:

All's well, Senator Byron Dorgan of the great state of North Dakota has done come clean. Senator Dorgan is the vice chairman of the Indian Affairs Committee. In that capacity he accepted $67,000 in contributions from Indian tribes represented by the recently indicted Jack Abramoff, a fabulous fixer here in the capital of the Free World. Abramoff, a Republican, has obviously been an equal-opportunity fixer, and apparently Dorgan was not above accepting his help, though Dorgan claims he never met the rogue and never backed any of his programs knowingly. Now there is an adverb to contemplate, "knowingly." The senator's aides admit that their boss did advocate some of Abramoff's programs while he was accepting the tribes' contributions, but he did not do so knowingly.

I thought Abramoff was tied only to Republicans? You'd never know that, listening to the moonbats out there. But I digress...

That is a good start on Senator Dorgan's road back to respectability. Yet there is another far more serious bit of funny business he has been involved in. He, along with several crafty Democrats, has been attempting to deny the public the contents of an Independent Counsel's report that is believed to contain evidence of serious corruption and misuse of the Internal Revenue Service and the Justice Department back in the Clinton Administration. In this cover-up the Democrats have had assistance from a few dubious Republicans. It is time to let the public see this report.

The report is the work of the staff of Independent Counsel David Barrett. He was tapped back in the Clinton days to investigate allegations that then Housing and Urban Development Secretary Henry Cisneros lied to the FBI and committed tax fraud in attempting to conceal money he had paid a mistress. Cisneros pled guilty back in 1999, and that would have been the end of it had Barrett's investigators not found serious misbehavior in Justice and in the IRS related to Cisneros' problems. Cisneros was a very promising Texas Democrat and the Clintons did not want him to come a cropper.

When Barrett completed his report the Clintons' lawyers led by that legendary Clinton pettifogger, David Kendall, tried to kill off the report either by gutting it with redactions or by getting it buried altogether. Kendall entered some 140 motions pursuant to this goal. The report has been ready for publication since August 2004 but Kendall's nuisance tactics have worked, and now what do we hear from the Clintonistas? They complain that Barrett has cost too much and taken too long. As they are themselves are the reason for much of the cost and delay, advocates of good government should be up in arms. This stratagem has been used too frequently by the Clintonistas to smear an officer of the court.

Barrett wants the report released in full. The reports of every other Independent Counsel have been released to the public in full, with only minor redactions where classified material might be revealed. There is a serious public-policy concern for releasing this report. It is the first independent investigation of the IRS by investigators armed with subpoena power. Civil libertarians concerned about the heavy-handedness of the IRS and its use as an instrument of political repression by the executive branch of the government know that this is very important.

Senator Dorgan has led the campaign to deny the report's contents to the public. Last April he attempted to end Barrett's funding. He was thwarted then, but more recently he tried a new ploy. With Democratic senators Richard Durbin and John Kerry, he bootlegged into an Iraq-war appropriations bill an amendment that would suppress the report completely. Some Republicans defeated this attempt, but Dorgan and his allies are clever. Into a later appropriations bill they got language that would suppress 120 pages of the report relating to Clinton Justice Department and IRS misbehavior. If the butchered report were published in this shape, they promised to do nothing further to delay its appearance. Amazingly key Republicans in these negotiations agreed, Senator Kit Bond and Congressman Joe Knollenberg. As things stand now, the expurgated report will appear and the public will be none the wiser as to how the IRS and Justice Department can be used to obstruct justice and harass private citizens.

Corrupt administrations in the future will have a free hand at playing politics the way they are played in a banana republic, or 20th century Arkansas.

Some much needed perspective on "Bush's secretly spying"

With all of the recent hullaballoo over Bush "spying" on America, there seems to be some sorely lacking perspective here: it's been done for a couple of decades now. America, specifically the NSA, has a program called Echelon that has been in place since the Cold War, and Bill Clinton did his fair share of Big Brother privacy abusing with this system. Click here for the "Clinton Rogue Gallery". Excerpt:

WorldNet Daily 2/25/99 Joseph Farah "…One of the secrets of the Clinton administration's success at staying in power has been to plot such dastardly deeds that few Americans could even grasp their evil intent. Right at the top of the list of such conspiracies -- now well documented, thanks to the extraordinary efforts of WorldNetDaily columnist Charles Smith -- is the Clipper Chip project. It involves all of the following: a treasonous relationship with China, a plan to tap every phone in America, drug money and, of course, the usual intrigue of administration figures such as Webster Hubbell, Al Gore, Ron Brown, Janet Reno and Clinton himself…The story starts in 1992 when AT&T developed secure telephones untappable by the federal government. The company planned to make them available to the American public. Instead, the Clinton administration interceded and bought up all the phones with a secret slush fund…. By 1994, White House aide John Podesta had been called into the inner circle of the Clipper project. Meanwhile, Podesta's brother, Tony, a lobbyist and fund-raiser was representing AT&T. His donors and clients, including AT&T, were invited to participate in trade trips to China and obtain valuable export deals with Beijing…By 1996, Reno was urging the all-out federal takeover of the computer industry and the banning of any encryption technology that doesn't let the government in the back door. Interestingly, the first target of the government's wiretap plan was its own Drug Enforcement Administration. Hmmm. The Chinese sought information obtained from such taps -- which may explain why Chinese drug lord Ng Lapseng gave as much money to the Democratic National Committee as he did. It's no wonder Reno didn't want to investigate the penetration of the DEA by the Chinese. After all, Ng was photographed with her bosses, Bill and Hillary Clinton at a DNC fund-raiser…."

Did the MSM touch any of Clinton's "abuses" (and I choose that term, since the left has chosen it to describe what Bush has "done")? No, they let the stories sink faster than Ted Kennedy's car in the river. But no...no liberal media bias!

Also, the big deal seems to be that Bush did this without a court-ordered warrant. Notice that the left gets all hot and bothered about laws that require minors get court approval before having an abortion ("time is of the essence!"), yet they don't seem to recognize it's a tad bit ludicrous to think that time is somehow less important when it comes to gathering intelligence against the people that want us dead? In other words, let the teenie bopper get her abortion without meddlesome parents or courts getting involved...but by God(insert big government as deity here), we don't want to find out about looming terrorist attacks without a person in a black robe giving the OK.

Look, I'm incredibly uneasy about Echelon and other government attempts to monitor its citizens. I hold privacy to be sacred. However, my point here is to illustrate leftist and media (pardon the redundancy) hypocrisy. When Clinton was spying, it was presumed to be on behalf of a benevolent government with benevolent intentions. With Bush spying, it's clearly malevolent and a gross violation of privacy!

In closing, here is some additional food for thought:

1. The NY Times, of Jayson Blair and Walter Duranty and "fake forged ballots from Iran" fame, knew about this story for a while, but sat on it to coincide with the release of their own national security reporter James Risen's new book "State of War":

>On the front page of today's NEW YORK TIMES, national security reporter James Risen claims that "months after the September 11 attacks, President Bush secretly authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans and others inside the United States... without the court approved warrants ordinarily required for domestic spying, according to government officials."

Risen claims the White House asked the paper not to publish the article, saying that it could jeopardize continuing investigations and alert would-be terrorists that they might be under scrutiny.

Risen claims the TIMES delayed publication of the article for a year to conduct additional reporting.

But now comes word James Risen's article is only one of many "explosive newsbreaking" stories that can be found -- in his upcoming book -- which he turned in 3 months ago!

The paper failed to reveal the urgent story was tied to a book release and sale.

The article mentioned "According to those officials and others, reservations about aspects of the program have also been expressed by Senator John D. Rockefeller IV, the West Virginia Democrat who is the vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee and a judge presiding over a secret court that oversees intelligence matters. Some of the questions about the agency's new powers led the administration to temporarily suspend the operation last year and impose more restrictions, the officials said." If Rockefeller had "reservations" about the program and served as a judge on a "secret court", that means he knew...which, by definition, kind of shoots Bush's unique "secretly" line to hell, doesn't it?

2. The NYT got madder than John McCain in room with no cameras when non-agent Valerie Plame's name was "leaked", and demanded an independent counsel on the grounds that national security may have been compromised. (Sidebar: They were so concerned with national security compromise that they fought to keep their own reporter's sources secret in said "leak" case. So much for that hollow "national security compromise" rhetoric!) Will they display consistency and demand the same type of investigation into who compromised national security by illegally leaking the "Bush spied" information? Sure, they'll display consistency there, about as soon as Barney Frank starts digging chicks!

3. The NYT finally acknowledges, in the 16th paragraph, the following:

What the agency calls a "special collection program" began soon after the Sept. 11 attacks, as it looked for new tools to attack terrorism. The program accelerated in early 2002 after the Central Intelligence Agency started capturing top Qaeda operatives overseas, including Abu Zubaydah, who was arrested in Pakistan in March 2002. The C.I.A. seized the terrorists' computers, cellphones and personal phone directories, said the officials familiar with the program. The N.S.A. surveillance was intended to exploit those numbers and addresses as quickly as possible, the officials said.

In addition to eavesdropping on those numbers and reading e-mail messages to and from the Qaeda figures, the N.S.A. began monitoring others linked to them, creating an expanding chain. While most of the numbers and addresses were overseas, hundreds were in the United States, the officials said.

>The paper's reporters righteously pat themselves on the back for waiting a year. But why is the Times' decision to publish the story any less dangerous now? Why did the editors choose to run the piece on the day after the Iraqi elections? Why not the day before? Why not Sunday?

Answer: to deflect attention away from supremely positive news, news which would buoy Bush in the public eye. Be damned if they were going to just sit by and let that happen!

>Some brief background: The Foreign Intelligence Security Act permits the government to monitor foreign communications, even if they are with U.S. citizens -- 50 USC 1801, et seq. A FISA warrant is only needed if the subject communications are wholly contained in the United States and involve a foreign power or an agent of a foreign power.

The reason the President probably had to sign an executive order is that the Justice Department office that processes FISA requests, the Office of Intelligence Policy and Review (OIPR), can take over 6 months to get a standard FISA request approved. It can become extremely bureaucratic, depending on who is handling the request. His executive order is not contrary to FISA if he believed, as he clearly did, that he needed to act quickly. The president has constitutional powers, too.

It's also clear from the Times piece that Rockefeller knew about the government's eavesdropping, as did the FISA court. By the time this story is fully fleshed out, we'll learn that many others knew about it, too. To the best of my knowledge, Rockefeller didn't take any steps to stop the eavesdropping. And he's no friend of this administration. Nor is he above using intelligence for political purposes, as his now infamous memorandum demonstrates.

But these leaks -- about secret prisons in Europe, CIA front companies, and now secret wiretaps, are egregious violations of law and extremely detrimental to our national security. They are far worse than any aspect of the Plame matter. The question is whether our government is capable of tracking down these perpetrators and punishing them, or will we continue to allow the Times and Washington Post determine national security policy. And if these wiretaps are violative of our civil liberties, it's curious that the Times would wait a year to report about it. I cannot remember the last time, or first time, this newspaper reported a leak that was helpful to our war effort.

In other words, folks, Congress knew about the "Bush spying" thing, as evidenced by point #1 above. You think Sen. Rockefeller was the only one who knew? No, Senator Reid knew, too, and tripped over his words like Ted Kennedrunk trips over the carpet after coming home from Happy Hour. My bud at Opinionnation has the proof.

Congress was, therefore, complicit. However, the MSM will refuse to hold them accountable, instead focusing its attention on the object of their disdain and hatred: Bush. Look for some weak-spined Republicans to give in quicker than the Gang of 14 on a filibuster threat.

5. Isn't this deceitful and misleading story further proof that there is a perpetual effort within this nation, at every level of the Democratic Party and the American press, to decimate our ability to wage war against this enemy? These people are sick and treasonous, and I wish that they would be held accountable for their loathesome behavior!

Saturday, December 17, 2005

Anti-WalMart union group makes children cry

A demonstration at a Wal-Mart store in North Lauderdale, Fla., reportedly led to shoving matches, the arrests of two protesters and counterclaims over who was to blame.

Elizabeth Calzadilla-Fiallo, a spokeswoman for the Broward County Sheriff's Office, said Friday that two demonstrators, a male and female, were arrested on misdemeanor charges of battery and obstruction of justice after they allegedly got into a shoving match with two assistant managers at the Wal-Mart store in North Lauderdale.

Calzadilla-Fiallo said her deputies were told that the demonstrators went into the store dressed as elves and handed out empty packages to children inside the store. The shoving match reportedly ensued when one of the assistant managers told the demonstrators they had to leave, she said.

Reports say that the kids cried when they opened the empty boxes. Nothing says "We're fighting for families!" quite like making children cry for your cause!

But don't worry...Zogby can always try and push-poll his clients (the anti-WM union) out of this mess. Considering his last poll that 56% of Americans hate Wal-Mart is about as believable as "I did not have sexual relations with that woman" and "I didn't inhale", I wouldn't be optimistic if I were Zogby...or Wake Up Wal-Mart!

I wonder: would John Kerry consider these union workers who made the children cry as "terrorizing children"? Or is that an expression he has reserved solely for our own soldiers?

But at least he's no "chickenhawk", right?

One of the lamest and easily dismissable arguments thrown out by liberals is the "chickenhawk" fallacy, whereby liberals finally come up with a use for our military: using them to try to silence opponents.

Since libs have no use for our military and its trivial tasks like defending their right to be stupid and speak stupidly, they say that you can't support our troops and their mission unless you serve in the military. However, they do not seem to have a problem with non-military personnel insulting the military. But I digress...

The Air Force Reserve plans to discharge a lieutenant colonel accused of defacing cars that had pro-Bush bumper stickers, the military said Friday. Lt. Col. Alexis Fecteau, a pilot with 500 combat hours in the first Persian Gulf war and the Balkans, is charged with criminal mischief for allegedly using paint stripper to write a profanity about Bush in 18-inch-high letters on cars at Denver International Airport.

I guess that I never saw James Carville, madder than a Katrina evacuee having exhausted the free money and needing to get a job, getting on TV saying that Bill Clinton was innocent of everything he was ever accused of: lying about Paula Jones, lying about Gennifer Flowers, lying about Monica Lewinsky, etc. No, Carville and Paul "The Forehead" Begala and Madeleine Dumpty Not2bright and other Clintonistas never got on TV or in the fishwraps and said that Clinton was innocent...before any trial was even held.

What? Carvile et al really did defend Clinton before and during trials and legal proceedings, loudly proclaiming his innocence? You know, that innocence that resulted in his admission that he lied under oath (most folks call that perjury) and resulted in his disbarrment for five years? Nah, couldn't be! After all, that would make them hypocrites, and we all know how consistent Dems are and how they practice what they preach...don't we?

McCain's "al Qaeda Bill of Rights" will have ramifications here

This is an awesome take on a stupid piece of legislation. From Max Boot of the LA Times:

HOLD THE PRESSES. I've discovered that the use of torture by the U.S. government is far more pervasive than previously believed. There are major facilities all over the country where thousands of men and women who have not committed any crime are held for prolonged periods while subjected to physical and psychological coercion that violates every tenet of the Geneva Convention.

They are routinely made to stand for long periods in uncomfortable positions. They are made to walk for hours while wearing heavy loads on their backs. They are bullied by martinets who get in their faces and yell insults at them. They are hit and often knocked down with clubs known as pugil sticks. They are denied sleep for more than a day at a time. They are forced to inhale tear gas. They are prevented from seeing friends or family. Some are traumatized by this treatment. Others are injured. A few even die.

Should Amnesty International or the International Committee of the Red Cross want to investigate these human-rights abuses, they could visit Parris Island, S.C., Camp Pendleton, Calif., Ft. Benning, Ga., Ft. Jackson, S.C., and other bases where the Army and Marines train recruits. It's worth keeping in mind how roughly the U.S. government treats its own defenders before we get too worked up over the treatment of captured terrorists.

(snip...)

Now Congress wants to outlaw these methods — said to have yielded valuable intelligence — by passing a prohibition on "cruel, inhumane or degrading" treatment. Even the "enhanced" techniques employed at Gitmo may not survive. The McCain amendment may make sense as a public relations move to counter a tidal wave of negative publicity. But it could lead to an anomalous result: a system that treats captured terrorists better than we treat our own soldiers.

McCain needs to remain the media darling if his shriveled old ass is to remain a viable candidate for Prez in 2008. What the dipsh#t doesn't realize is that if he actually survives the GOP primary and runs against Her Highness, the press will discard him faster than Her Highness' hubby discards interns once they reach age 30. But hey...you can't win the White House if you're not at least a finalist, right?

AFA flipping out over "pro-gay" Ford

The American Family Association has its thongs in a wad over its perception of the auto giant Ford's "pro-gay" stances. From WND:

A pro-family group that has held Ford accountable for its promotion of the homosexual agenda says it may call for another official boycott of the company after it "violated" an agreement with the organization.

Ford announced Wednesday it was reversing an earlier decision to stop advertising its Jaguar and Land Rover brands in homosexual magazines after pressure from "gay rights" groups.

I just want to know why the AFA gives a hoot where Ford decides to spend its advertising dollars. I mean, do gay folks not have money? If so, wouldn't Ford be doing a poor fidcuiary service to its shareholders by not trying to tap into that market? Money is still green, regardless of the money holder's race, politics, or persuasions...right? If targeting gay audiences in its advertising doesn't pay off for Ford, then you can best believe it will stop doing so. Until that happens, though, how does this issue affect me or anyone else?

Also, the AFA notes this:

"All we wanted was for Ford to refrain from choosing sides in the cultural war, and supporting groups that promote same-sex marriage is not remaining neutral," Wildmon stated.

Ford promotes same-sex marriage, right? And just how effective has that endeavor been for them? Last year, 11 out of 11 states banned gay marriage. Here's guessing that there were a large number of Ford owners that voted with the majority in those states. Regardless of what one's view is on gay marriage, the fact that a corporation likes the idea is irrelevant to me.

Also, Ford offers same-sex benefits to its employees. Again, so what? Why do I care if Jane wants to put Wilma on her health plan? If the premiums are getting paid, then whoopdee-freakin'-doo!

Look, I don't have a problem with the AFA or anyone else speaking with their pocketbooks. I do it all the time, though I doubt you'd be interesting in hearing all the examples. Your money, your choice of where to spend it. However, doesn't the same tenet hold true for Ford?

I may not support gay marriage, and I may even think same-sex bennies are a bit over the top, but I'm not about to lose an ounce of sleep over how Ford spends its dollars. If enough Ford buyers feel that strongly against their policies, let them speak with their pocketbooks. I just don't think that the AFA speaks for them.

Basically, I think the AFA spends way too much time concerning itself with people's bedroom inclinations. If this were a case of Ford trying to put Heather Has Two Mommies or King and King into classrooms across America, I'd be right there with the AFA in trying to stop it. However, since this is no such case, I think the AFA should mellow out a bit.

More proof of our soldiers "terrorizing" Iraqi children

"Why The Right Hates The Left"

It's a blog post's title, which I think would be more accurate to ask "Why The Right Hates The Liberalism?" After all, I try to make a distinction between the left's people and liberalism itself.

See, liberals are people. They may be insufferable, misguided, aggravating, mind-numbed, warped, intellectually vacuous people...but they're still people. (By the way, these characterizations clearly don't apply to all liberals, so if they don't apply to you, then relax: I'm not talking about you, then...am I?)

Liberalism, on the other hand, is a provably failed ideology that must not be administered on the body politic if our country is to survive. It's such an intellectually dishonest ideology that politicians who swear allegiance to it are clandestine about it. In other words, while your average liberal may be open about their liberalism, your average politician will not be.

Anyway, I digress. Tom Beavan of RCP has a great blog entry about the right and left's relationship:

Last weekend I did something I haven't done in a long time. Something I swore I'd never do again. Something I'm deeply ashamed of.

I stood during the singing of the national anthem. [snip]

I won't stand for the American flag because I won't stand for what is done in its name. I won't stand for the current war in Iraq, I won't stand for the last war in Iraq. I won't stand for all the wars before that. I won't stand for its selectively faulty elecotral process and I won't stand for its unelected, renegade government. I won't stand for its medieval attitude towards sexuality and privacy, for its violent misinterpretation of Christianity, for its refusal to deal sanely with AIDS and all other global health crises, for its environmentally suicidal stance on climate change, for the hypocrisy of its practices, for the torture of its prisoners, for its executions and its drug wars and its oil wars. I won't stand for any of these things, and I won't stand for the United States of America, or its flag or its anthem, until they change.

Read this closely and you'll see it is more than a garden-variety anti-Bush rant. George W. Bush isn't responsible for the first Gulf War, nor any of the wars before that. He's not responsible for whatever flaws may exist in our electoral system (they've been around, and been much worse, long before he got here) and Bush has arguably done as much or more to combat AIDS than any president before him.

There are only two conclusions to be drawn from this woman's comments: either she is a partisan hypocrite of the highest order (did she vote for Bill Clinton after he flew home to execute Ricky Ray Rector? Was she standing for the National Anthem while bombs were dropping on Kosovo or smoke was still rising from the ashes in Waco?) or she truly detests what America stands for regardless of which party is in control. Either way, it's not pretty. I'd be more angry about it if her self-absorbed navel-gazing wasn't so strikingly pathetic.

Look, I understand that not all libs hate America. I would venture to guess that a sizable minority of them, though, hate this country very much. That's why, in part, the right despises liberalism.

How bad must things suck for the left?

Iraqis, including Sunnis, are voting in droves for their freedom. The economy is booming. Joblessness is down, and employment is up. Home ownership is at an all-time high, especially among minorities. The stock market is hovering around 11,000 (nearly double what it was after the Sept. 11 attacks made the Dow plummet).

Sure, we have problems here in America. However, as a result of all of this good news, Bush's poll numbers (for those who care, since I admittedly don't) have climbed from the low 30's to the mid 40's and may continue this trend.

I ask you: aside from picking up a copy of a metropolitan daily fishwrap or watching the MSM, what's a lib gotta do to get some good ol' BAD NEWS for America? This much "good for America, therefore bad for the left" news must be disheartening for the Deaniacs and Sheehanistas.

UPDATE: 07:45 a.m. EST -Michelle Malkin has some links to moonbat reactions throughout the blogosphere that pretty much bolster my argument here.

Thursday, December 15, 2005

Profanity in schools

Old Hippie Guy

This is from an encounter that a brave soldier, at a training drill weekend's breakfast at Hardee's, had with what he termed "Old Hippie Guy."

This scraggly looking holdover from the McGovern era approached our table unprovoked, and stated "Gentleman, the September 11th attacks were avenged by the deaths of thousands of children, I hope you sleep well at night." With that, giving us little time, through our amazement, he spun around and lurched out of the doorway, leaving the cadet and I to consider the following options:

1. It is 1971, and somehow we had been hurled back in time under Terminator rules. If this was so, then we were probably confused with the other baby-child-killing soldiers of that time, instead of the baby-child killers of today. Simple mistake. If it was 1971, then our first action would have been to steal as much confederate gold as possible, so as to fund my future presidential campign.

(snip...)

5. I am personally controlled by Karl Rove, and must phone the White House every morning for permission to dress myself. Karl Rove eats babies after I kill them.

So, that about wraps it up. The moral of the story is that you can’t argue or reason with shrieking liberal hippies. They can’t get over the mind set that we do not live in the world of the 60's anymore. People are not throwing things at soldiers when they return from Iraq, they are welcoming them. This is why Old Hippie guy’s opinions had to be quickly stated in an empty Hardees. No one agrees with him anymore, and he can’t stand it. Now the chip in my brain is telling me its time to go kill ba- eat lunch. Later.

Please, read the whole thing...it's not very long, and it's freaking hilarious!

He notes: "At least Old Hippy Dude didn't stop and mutter 'oh by the way I support you, just not the war' as he was leaving." Now where have we heard that before?

Fewer than half of Katrina victims were black?

Statistics released by the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals suggest that fewer than half of the victims of Hurricane Katrina were black, and that whites died at the highest rate of all races in New Orleans.

Liberals in the aftermath of the storm were quick to allege that the Bush administration delayed its response to the catastrophe because most of the victims were black.

It looks like George Bush will have to fine-tune his Rovian Hurricane Generator in time for next year's fury, huh?

For those of you who are stuck on stupid and vote for liberals, the prior sentence was sarcasm.

Wednesday, December 14, 2005

"Students Arrested For Oral Sex In Classroom"

I saw the headline on Drudge, and was shocked to see that the incident took place in my own back yard. Well, not literally in my yard, but in Jacksonville. Anyway, from First Coast News:

Three First Coast students are facing criminal charges after a teacher says they were involved in oral sex in the classroom.

Christopher Lemay, 18, is accused of paying a 16-year-old-girl to perform the act on another boy at Sandalwood High. Those two are under-age, so First Coast News is not releasing their identities.

Sandalwood administrators say the act happened under a table in a large class full of students, so the teacher had limited visibility.

Point to ponder: if the act had been performed by a boy on another boy, would the school have reacted the same way? Or, in their efforts to subject our children to "multiculturalism", "diversity", "tolerance", and "open-mindedness", would there have been any disciplinary action at all? Keep in mind, we are talking about today's teacher union-controlled public school system (with no disrepect to the fine public school teachers out there, since the teachers are definitely not always on the same page as their lamebrained union and administration).

Tuesday, December 13, 2005

Yours truly honored with a prestigious award

One of my blogrolled sites is "The Nose on Your Face", a political satire blog (and one of the better ones out there). Well, they had a "Fake Quote of the Day" contest, and yours truly entered...and won! Link to award here.

It was a quote that the Crush Liberalism Objective World News Service (CLOWNS) uncovered around Pearl Harbor Day. My post is here.

Anyway, my thanks to TNOYF for the recognition! To quote those cultural icons of the early 1990's, Wayne and Garth: "I'm not worthy! I'm not worthy!"

Judge: Taxpayers must continue funding Katrina evacuees' hotel rooms

At the risk of being called an insensitive bastard (note to self: care about insults), I find the judge's ruling pretty despicable. Full story here, excerpt follows:

A federal judge ruled Monday that a program that is putting tens of thousands of Hurricane Katrina evacuees up in hotels must be extended until Feb. 7 — a month beyond the cutoff date set by FEMA.

U.S. District Judge Stanwood Duval said victims must be given more time in hotels because FEMA cannot guarantee that all applications for other aid, such as rent assistance or trailers, will be processed by the agency's Jan. 7 deadline.

My main problem with the ruling is that a court seems to be imposing a deadline, and what appears to be an arbitrarily one at that, on how long the taxpayers are expected to foot the bill. Was this judicial activism? I don't know, since I admittedly don't have the transcripts of the ruling. However, my initial reaction is that the ruling likely was judicial activism. The judge's words (ones that I could find, anyway):

"It is unimaginable what anxiety and misery these erratic and bizarre vacillations by FEMA have caused the victims, all of whom, for at least one point in time, had the very real fear of being without shelter for Christmas."

This fear, anxiety, and misery are legal grounds for forced aid? I mean, why stop at Katrina victims? Why not compel taxpayers to fund hotel rooms for other homeless people? Hey, we might be on to something here!

Also, here's a politically incorrect and intemperate thought:

By and large, these hotel-dwelling evacuees are people who lived a parasitic lifestyle in the Big Easy, and they have just exported their "gimme" entitlement mindset to other parts of the country. They will continue to suckle off the bosom of the taxpayers until they are compelled to get out there and (gasp!) fend for themselves. Rest assured, the ACLU and other "activists" will work diligently (isn't that "work diligently" ironic when compared to what the parasites are avoiding?) to make sure that the workophobes won't have to lift a finger or burn a calorie doing work. The ACLU can add a slogan: "We work hard, so you don't ever have to!"

For the Katrina evacuees (especially the subsidized former hotel-dwellers) who have dusted themselves off, started a new life and career or job in another town: you are to be saluted for your perseverance. Unfortunately, here's guessing that there are scant few of you, however.

Monday, December 12, 2005

The family drunk that won't leave

No, this isn't about Ted Kennedy. It's that periodic post that I put up once in a while, usually for the less aware visitors. This is about how I do things around here.

See the blog's title? I picked it. See the heading? I picked it. See the picture and description in the right frame? All mine. In short, this is my world. If you don't like it, go get your own. They're free these days, and that's a price that liberals can appreciate...considering that they expect everything to be cost-free.

Also, if I come across as a smart ass who likes to engage in witty banter at other people's expense, there's a reason I come across that way: it's who I am. To know me is to love me...OK, that's not entirely true! But I digress...

See, I like it when moonbats flitter in from time to time. It's pretty fun to disrupt their worldview and bring them discomfort by pointing out (a) the ignorance and inconsistencies of their views, and (b) the degree to which the electorate rejects their way of thinking. It's fun for them to put their hilarious paranoia on display. However, just as Bill Clinton eventually got tired of Gennifer Flowers (and scores of others), I eventually get tired of the same rantings. I'll leave the money on the dresser and be on my way.

These twits refuse to follow simple requests. When requested to read something that may "tip their apple cart", they don't. Instead, they post links to discredited (if even heard of) moonbat blogs to try to bolster their weak arguments, paranoid conspiracy theories, and other asshat ravings. Once it becomes apparent that trying to reason with them is as effective as Ted Bundy's victims having tried to reason with him, I give up trying. That's when I toss them faster than a discarded Clinton mistress.

A friend asked me via e-mail "Why would you ban them? It gives them the impression they've won!" Well, I respond, like I give a wet fart on a dry January Monday what they think! If thinking they "won" gets them through the night until their next Thorazine dosage in the morning, more power to them. I guarantee you that I don't lose a lick of sleep over it. Considering that liberal loons win scarcely anything these days, why deprive them of their perceived "victory"?

So where does the "family drunk" come in? Well, we all have someone in our family or circle of friends who simply can't take a hint and hangs around in a drunken stupor when they're no longer welcome. When you finally throw them out, they're too incoherent to take the hint and try coming back. You toss them again, and they come back again. They continually waste their time trying to inject themselves where they're no longer wanted, failing to see that no one is paying attention to them beyond the act of throwing them out. More often than not, they realize that they're wasting their time and what pitiful shell of a life they have...and move on.

Well, Paul and other moonbats are the "family drunk" here. I've decided to clean my house of the sociopaths that are incapable of intelligent thought. Media Matters, MoveOn, Code Pink, "two stolen elections", George Soros, Michael Moore, Cindy She-hag, Howard the Coward...that kind of stuff just isn't welcome, because it's all bogus bullshit. If moonbats want to delude themselves into believing that claptrap, they're more than welcome to do so. It just won't be here.

So, feel free to post, moonbats, because your drivel is just going to get deleted before I read it, and you're just going to get banned. When you come in under a friend's, relative's, gay lover's, or whomever's ISP, that one will get banned and deleted, too. It likely won't even get read much (if at all), because Haloscan lets me see who's posted and their IP address. I won't respond, your post gets deleted, you get banned...in short, you are ignored like Bill Clinton ignored terrorism. If you have so little of a life that you try coming back in, that's just sad...and too damned bad, because you will still be removed, you pathetic pseudostalkers.

To my liberal friends with whom I often (if not mostly) disagree, such as James, Joshua, Kvatch (yes, you!), and Honest Partisan (and Lisa Renee, though we often agree more times than not)...you are welcome here because you at least keep the debate polite, civil, and even rational. Or, at the very least, you use sarcasm tastefully, which is always a plus here! I like your contributions here, even when we passionately disagree. Disagreement is as welcome as agreement, as my friends here can attest to, since we've at times disagreed on contentious issues (Terri Schiavo, death penalty, etc.). Defending Cindy She-hag, Mikie Moore, and Howard the Coward Dean as legitimate and serious icons of leftist discourse renders you intellectually vacuous to me and to everyone else here...in short, it exposes your moonbattery. Your moonbattery is tolerated at my convenience, not yours.

In closing, don't come into my house and complain about the house rules. Don't come here for dinner and complain about the menu. Get your own house if you don't like the rules of mine. The rules are pretty simple: keep it civil, be thoughtful, and for God's sake...stay relevant to the topic and don't meander off on a different direction because you're losing the argument. Should you ignore those rules, I will likely respond in kind, before losing interest in you like Bill lost interest in Hillary in the 1970's.

Sunday, December 11, 2005

If you can't stand the heat...

...then keep your treasonous trap shut. It looks like the Dems are starting to feel uneasy about the new GOP commercial that accurately portrays the Dems' anti-war sentiments. From Drudge:

Today, Senator Daniel Inouye, the Ranking Member of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee and a recipient of the Medal of Honor for his service in World War II, released the following statement:

"As a Veteran of World War II, I know what it’s like to fight a war and put your life on the line every day. I also know what it takes to win a war, and I know that politics and an attack machine like the President’s plays no part in it.

"The Republican Party’s latest ad is a shameful and disgusting attempt to distract the American people from the problems in Iraq. It may improve the President’s political fortunes, but the American people and our troops will pay the price. I hope that President Bush realizes how shameful it is to play politics when what we really need is leadership, and that he will direct his Party to take down this ad immediately."

Emphasis mine. You are correct, sir: playing politics should play no part in war. However, you bastards launched the salvo in your fit of BDS (Bush Derangement Syndrome), and now you don't like it that the other side doesn't fight French-style...i.e. they fight back.

Also, the last sentence: "I hope that President Bush realizes how shameful it is to play politics when what we really need is leadership." Yes, the President AND the American people find politics during wartime to be shameful, and they look for leadership. Unfortunately, the left offers none.

If you leftists have criticisms of the war effort because you think the administration is doing it wrong, fine...let's hear your suggestions. Something other than "get out now" or "Bush sucks" would be a nice start. Until then, how about a nice hot mug of Shut the F##k Up juice and let our military do the job properly...m'kay? Thanks in advance.

Chris Wallace admits his old man is a moonbat

"Fox News Sunday" anchorman Chris Wallace says father Mike Wallace has "lost it" - after the legendary CBS newsman told the Boston Globe last week that the fact George Bush had been elected president shows America is "[expletive]-up."

"He's lost it. The man has lost it. What can I say," the younger Wallace lamented to WRKO Boston radio host Howie Carr on Friday.

"He's 87-years old and things have set in," the Fox anchor continued. "I mean, we're going to have a competence hearing pretty soon."

Wallace Jr. quickly dispelled any notion that he was joking. When Carr suggested that his comments were likely to be covered by NewsMax, he responded: "You know what? Fine. Go ahead. Call them. That's fine. I'll stand by that."

What does Chris think of Howard the Coward Dean?

Asked about DNC chair Howard Dean's recent prediction that the U.S. would lose the war in Iraq, Wallace told Carr:"We are in a war. We do have 150,000-plus American soldiers over there. I mean, it's Tokyo Rose, for God sakes, going on radio saying we can't win the war."

Aw, c'mon, Chris...didn't you get the memo? They really do support the troops!

About Me

I am not conservative or Republican. I am a "neo-libertarian." It’s more logically consistent than conservatism and liberalism.
Liberals are not evil; however, their ideology has proven to be a demonstrable failure and incredibly harmful when administered on the body politic.
I have lived in the South all of my life. While I'd love to travel, I don't want to live anywhere else. Though I currently live near Jacksonville, FL, I call Memphis home (lived there most of my life). I'm a Florida State University Seminole, through and through.
All viewpoints are welcome on my blog. However, if I ban you or edit/delete your comments, it's because I found you to be offensive, repulsive, or otherwise useless. My world, my rules. Deal with it, or beat it.
Finally, I had a happy childhood, so my worldview has NOT been "warped" by a lousy upbringing. Quite the contrary: I have been blessed, and my outlook has been molded accordingly. I won't apologize for having grown up in a loving, middle-class family.